<<AI Generated Podcast of This Article>>
<<Republished from the ImmutableType Substack>>
One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies lists off a number of obstacles our heroes must overcome to simply end up in a final difficult situation--the need to escape from the desert with all their loot.
“they got cameras, they got watches, they got locks, they got timers, they got vaults, they got enough armed personnel to occupy Paris..." link
While I certainly aspire to age as well as George Clooney, I’d prefer to be cast a bit more as Elliot Gould playing Rueben. I 'd want the chains and the robe, of course, but I really just want to spend my days drinking orange juice and helping others realize their wild dreams.
I don't have the robe just yet, but we’re still building ImmutableType as a modernized media project for journalists to escape the boundaries of the traditional mainstream media business models. The series of miracles that we'll need to be deliver are no less significant than what Gould outlines to Clooney and Pitt during that scene from Ocean's 11.
…are you listening to me? You’re, both of you, are nuts…
To succeed in satisfying the mission of ImmutableType, we’ll need to accomplish our own set of miracles:
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Deploy effective marketplace technology
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Change journalist behavior
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Change media consumer behavior
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Create sustainable new business models for news media
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Abstract away the complexity of crypto and blockchain for all our members
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Create a new alternative asset class of collectable articles and photographs
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Create new economic trading activity from novel incentive structures
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Satisfy yet-to-be-defined regulation requirements across jurisdictions globally
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Counsel the public about the need for trusted information and journalism
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Avoid destruction from perverse forces, internally and externally
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Drive adoption costs toward zero to maximize accessibility
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And, attract sufficient funding, talent, and partners
And, if all the cards fall in our favor and our unlikely bets pay off? We'll then have the opportunity to begin our journey.
Success in the Desert
Say we pull off all that tactical hoopla above. We still have a lingering question as our starting point: What if nobody cares?
“Lest we forget, once you’re out the front door, you’re still in the middle of the f*cking desert!”
What if nobody cares if their news and journalism sources are true?
That was a question posed to me during a Twitter Spaces discussion late in 2022, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. What if nobody cares?
The person who asked the question wasn’t attempting to poke holes in ImmutableType as a viable project. The question was asked about the general priority of people. Is journalism still important enough to society that we require it to be true? Do we even care if it’s true? Do we care enough to change our behaviors in a meaningful way and learn new habits, or will we only subscribe to what is familiar and widely accepted as the official truth? Do we want true and accurate information from our journalists and media companies, or do we simply want to be informed of what everyone else believes to be true? Perhaps we just want to know which way the wind is blowing, so we can get out of the storm–maybe the only real truth is shelter.
The quick answer is of course we want the truth. It’s the necessary defensive reaction. We morally insist on truth from our mass media, and we need to believe it’s always been true to validate our life decisions, which have likely been informed by the media's portrayal of information.
We’ve all made voting decisions based upon information from the media. We have formed opinions about social issues and local government priorities based on local reporting and national narratives. We take action to join groups and attend events based upon taste-maker insights. Good lorrrrrrrd, we even make financial decisions based upon published economic articles and reports (recession, no recession, hot IPO, corporate scandals). If the information provided to us through journalism and the mainstream media were not true and accurate all our lives, then we have likely lived a suboptimal life to date from those decisions.
That’s a hard truth. Some of our decisions have been wrong, and being wrong is painful. If the media hasn’t been truthful, then our decisions have been uninformed, and we may be the rubes we believe others to be. Of course we care if the media is true. It’s always been true and reliable. There is a challenge to our accountability in having made these decisions based upon media reports and editorial influence. Our decision-making framework is already entrenched in the existing news cycle, and it’s familiar. Maybe it’s all a lie, but it’s our lie, and it works just fine for our daily needs. Why would we care to exit that cocoon?
Yet, the data tells a different story. Trust in the media is at some of the lowest levels ever recorded. We DON’T trust the media.
And a new report from Gallup outlines that even journalists are concerned about their own press freedom.
And, while trust in the media is falling, our consumption and use of information via media platforms is increasing daily. What is happening? We trust less and use more.
Maybe we consume more information today just to find our way through all the varied perspectives? Or, maybe we can’t believe our eyes and need to find additional references to comprehend what we do see? Maybe the current technology is addictive and efficiently curating information to be intentionally inconclusive to spur additional usage to serve more ad impressions--just keep doom scrolling, mam. Maybe the information is just so thin, watered down, and duplicative that we are spending more time reading the same republished stories over and over.
Jack Dorsey recently made the claim that the "most of the world doesn’t actually care about censorship," because if it did, then censorship resistant technology would break out of its niches and become widely adopted. Truth from our media must be uncensored.
He’s right. Despite the market opportunity for trust from the media, user behavior continues to trend away from its own self interest. Legacy social media continues to draw upon our finite attention, and we are not adopting products which are MORE true than the mainstream media. Maybe 'nobody' does care.
With any of these cases, trust is trending down, and usage is trending higher. We’re expending more effort than ever to end up less certain about what we read and consume. It’s turtles, man, all the way down.
Those are Terry Benedict’s Casinos
"This sort of thing used to be civilized."
The mission of ImmutableType is to fortify trusted journalism through blockchain technology and decentralized community ownership. We’ll need to deliver the list of miracles as noted above just to end up in the middle of the desert. We’re a bit nuts, and as Reuben mentioned, we’re going to need a crew just as nuts as we are.
One of the convictions people must have when building something new is a belief that others will find it useful once it’s been built. A belief that other people will care. A belief that the thing being built will result in utility so great that people must choose to use the new thing and abandon their existing behavior and training. People must care that the thing has been built in the end. You can’t just ask them to care, and you can’t force them to care. They must care enough about what you’ve built to make tradeoffs to adopt the new thing as a result of their natural desire. You have to believe you will be able to achieve this position in the user's life when building something new. It's a bit nuts.
So, what do we have against Terry Benedict? Well, the house always wins, and we’re betting against the house by building ImmutableType. If we are successful and escape the desert and become a naturally adopted technology, then many old lies will fall, and people will have access to more accurate information from provable sources than they’ve had in a very long time. The odds will flip in favor of the players, and the players will start to bet big and begin winning. We want to create a fairer game by building new tools and letting people bet in their interests. We have to believe people will care about that fairer game.
The many times greater utility that will create this fairer game will be to build technology which fortifies trusted journalism. Trusted journalism must become the default expectation for people to care about what we are building. People will care about truth when truth is provable, sustainable, censorship resistant, and valuable. We are betting that we’ll find that balance and people will ultimately care. Maybe it’s a sucker’s bet, but we have to place this bet regardless of the odds.
And, what if we're wrong and nobody cares in the end? I guess that’s an option of a free civilization...to fade away. I think, however, the answer to the question, "What if nobody cares?" is that we must believe we can build a product that serves the instincts of people to survive as free people. We have to believe we can build with increasing rates of utility until the odds turn so vastly in favor of the players that the house comes down when the people ultimately do care.
Actions on you. Place your bet.